


The Time We Met One Direction, a remix

by snsk



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, and wondering if they would survive, but this is me placing them in the same situation, it's not quite a larry au?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dan and phil and that not-quite boyband AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time We Met One Direction, a remix

They meet in the toilet.

“Hi,” the boy says. Phil turns to face him, forgets he’s, you know. In the toilet for a reason.

“Oops,” Phil apologises, “sorry, sorry, sorry.” The boy’s face looks like it doesn’t know which expression to quite settle on. Phil wants to cry and laugh and apologise over and over all at the same time, so he settles on finishing his piss. “I’m really, really sorry for peeing on you,” he promises, when they’re both done and tucked in and washing up.

“Oh,” he says, thrown. “Hi.” The boy has lovely brown eyes. The boy has a _dimple_.

“Hi,” the boy says again, wondrously still smiling. “It’s fine. Bad timing, I guess. I’m such a fail.”

“I’m the one who peed on you,” Phil says ruefully.

“It’s alright,” the boy tells him. “I wanted a reason to talk to you anyway.” He looks like he hadn’t expected his mouth to say this and looks down at his shoes - shoes which Phil had finely sprayed a couple of minutes ago, well done Phil. A flush creeps up his neck.

“I’m Phil,” Phil says. “Are you here for the audition?”

“I’m Dan,” Dan says, looking up. Phil realises he wants to press his thumb to that dimple. Phil realises he wants a lot, all of a sudden. “And yes.”

 

“One Direction,” Dan says, “because it’s so... Obvious. It’s such a boyband name. It’s perfect. It’s so obvious it’s taking the piss out of boyband names! Get it? It’s...”

Two of his (as of thirty minutes ago) band members stare confusedly at him. The other one shrugs like he couldn’t care either way, but they’re beginning to realise that’s his general outward behaviour towards everything.

“It’s ironic,” Phil says, smiling and shaking his head.

“Yes, Phil,” Dan agrees. “ _Yes_. Thank you.” He grins at him, wide. Phil pokes at his dimple, because he gets to, now.

 

They don’t win the competition, but they sign a contract with a management company for an album. Which, fuck.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Phil says into Dan’s shoulder when they’re jumping around backstage, high off this, high off their future, high off each other, and he doesn’t bother to read the fine print because Dan’s arms are wrapped tight around his neck and he’s happier than he’d ever thought he’d get to be.

So far so good, then. So far going swimmingly, in fact.

 

They move in together, and that’s pretty great too. Turns out Dan can cook, and clean, and alphabetically arrange all their DVDs. Turns out Dan’s a pretty great kisser, makes soft noises when Phil slides his hands under his shirt, and has a spot on his shoulder that makes him sigh and go limp. Turns out moving in with Dan is like slotting a puzzle piece in where Phil had thought he had wanted for nothing before. Something that feels indefinably right. Something Phil thinks he’d give anything not to lose.

Recording the album in studios late at night, afternoons spent in producers’ houses; evenings where Dan is spread out soft-edged on sofas, exhausted, evenings where Phil makes four of the best friends he’ll ever know, and all the while, more people recognise them on the street. Dan always greets them with a _Hey_!, with a _Do you want me to take the picture? I have long arms_. He chats with them like he’s known them all his life. He was born for this.

Before they know it their album’s a bestseller worldwide, and they amend their contract, and it’s four more, and tours too, and fuck - _it’s so much_ , Phil tells his mum, _it’s so great_ , and she hums in agreement at the first part, says nothing to the second. He hasn’t been home in almost a year, and he still has not read the fine print.

 

The first tour, of course, is crazy stuff: people screaming their names, holding up signs, there because of them, there because of him. The excitement that fills you up from that crowd is as fizzy as champagne, as light as helium: you either thrive on that noise or it suffocates you.

Dan, ever the theater kid, thrives. He flourishes. Of course.

But Phil looks at him from across the stage and sees the shine of his eyes, sees the sweat beading down his cheek. This helium buoys him: Phil’s boy, but not wholly Phil’s; theirs too, and Phil will have to learn how to share.

You could suffocate on this noise. You could overheat under these lights. You could drown in this wave of relentless energy. Or you could look at your boy and do none of those things, and Phil waves at Birmingham, shouts _Good evening_! at Norwich, lets their collective roar fill him up, even if it’s louder than he’d thought it’d be.

 

There is a music festival. There is a shakily-taken video. There are too many tumblr posts analysing how Dan’s phone charger is plugged in on the other side of Phil’s bed. After yet another pointless, deliberately-worded meeting advising them to be ‘a bit more careful,’ now that they are ‘in the spotlight,’ Phil shrugs and says, “they can’t prove anything,” but Dan bites at a hangnail, says, “there’s still something for them to want to go on proving.”

Phil asks: “Why does it matter?”

Dan says: “It shouldn’t.” But it does. He curls up small in Phil’s arms that night, and Phil looks at the dark circles under his eyes, stark even in the dim light. In the morning, their make up artist will use concealer on him, will even it out so Dan will look like he is getting enough sleep.

 

They start recording their second album before they finish their first tour. Phil asks if he can get in on the songwriting process and they let him sit on in the sessions, let him observe, ask questions, listen to his input. Phil rather likes this. Phil rather likes this part of it best.

When the tour wraps up officially, they are given a couple of weeks off before recording starts in earnest: Dan goes back to Wokingham, alone, and Phil goes up north to his family, who alternately coo over him and chide him over how much weight he’s lost: he’s playing Monopoly with Martyn and Cornelia on the third day when he gets a call from Dan.

“Hold on,” he tells Martyn, who grins at Cornelia in an insufferable older-sibling way, so Phil whacks him on the shoulder and goes outside to take the call.

“Hey,” Dan says, “so... I’m at the train station.”

“London?” Phil asks, confusedly.

“Um,” Dan says, “no.”

Martyn drives, and Phil jumps out of the car before it slows to a complete stop, eyes searching the crowd and finally, finally alighting on Dan, bag over his shoulder and his furry hat on, hands stuffed in his pockets. He barrels forward and hugs him. He’s _missed_ him. He’s missed him too much for only a few days apart. Dan buries his face in his neck and laughs, a bit choked-sounding, and holds him close.

“I know we were supposed to meet up tomorrow at home,” (home, home, it’s home to Phil too, he feels like Dan should know that) “but I’m lame and I missed you a lot.”

Phil can’t stop smiling. Phil wants to take Dan’s hand. But the crowd hasn’t fully thinned yet and he can do that at back at his parents’. “Come and meet everyone,” he says instead, brushing their shoulders together, and leads Dan to where Martyn’s waiting.

 

The last week they spend at home alone: video games and movies and lazy bouts of making out, the laziness of it building up into something breathless, something that’s capable of making Phil dizzy with how much he’s aching with it and capable of surprising shocked little moans out of Dan, red-bitten mouth open with it, fingers grasping at Phil’s hair, and this is something Phil knows he can’t lose.

 

Dan reaches three million followers on Twitter. They start planning for the second tour. One of their bandmates gets a tattoo and Phil marvels at the inky permanence of it, sliding darkly down his arm.

“I could never get a tattoo,” Dan says. “It’s so - final. I could never make my mind up on what to get. I’d just keep agonizing forever.”

Phil thinks that tattoos are a nice idea to show your dedication to something, to someone. He also knows that tattoos fade, that you have to rely on stronger bonds for permanence.

 

“A fake girlfriend?” Dan demands. “To make me more _appealing_? Wouldn’t that make me _less_ appealing, if I’m dating someone?”

Not if that someone’s a girl, comes the ready answer. A lovely girl, who needs the PR as much as the band does. We’re not asking you to kiss her or anything. Just be seen together around the city. So that the paps can see.

Phil knows that Dan knows exactly what the paps will see. Phil sees Dan looking over at him, sees his mind working. Phil, right then, wishes for something he can’t quite understand: in another universe, another Phil fiddles with a camera. In yet another one, a boy sees the love of his life staring back at him, wide green eyes, the nervous moue of his mouth.

“ _Fuck_ that,” Dan declares. “Come on, Phil.”

And there it is.

(In another universe, Phil leaves Dan to his liveshow. In another universe, the boy says, “I’ll do it,” because he sees no other way.)

It’s all in the decisions you make. All you can do is muddle along. All you can do is get by.

 

Of course, this doesn’t solve all their problems: Dan vehemently denies _phan_ in interview after interview, spells p-l-a-t-o-n-i-c out on tumblr for the ones who miss them. The hours he spends on the internet, jaw tight, shaking his head at Phil telling him to just go to bed. The newspaper headlines still publish what they choose to see: Dan and a mystery girl, Phil’s wild orgies up in hotel rooms.

But.

But Phil places a firm hand on the laptop’s lid and closes it down. Phil pulls Dan to his feet and kisses him all the way to the room, until Dan can’t remember any nasty comment some idiot had the nerve to reply to him. Phil writes it all out in lyrics, masked enough in private conversations that people can only guess at their meaning. They learn a language of shoulder-knocks, hand-brushes, quiet smiles. They don’t move out, not when it’s at its worst, and it will never be at its worst forever.

They push through it. They muddle through. They get by. This is a decision they both make, every single day.

 

Somewhere in the middle of their third tour, somewhere in a hotel room in Berlin, Phil says: “Hey-”

No amount of concealer can hide the shadows under Dan’s eyes now; he’d been falling asleep, eyes drooping, head on Phil’s lap. They’re sharing earbuds. Phil gently takes Dan’s out, then his.

“I think this is enough for now,” Phil says.

“Hmm?” Dan sighs, the word exhausting him. “Yeah, we should-” yawn -“we should. Get to bed.”

“I mean,” Phil elaborates. “all of this. It’s enough.” He waves a hand to emphasize the point.

Dan’s eyes widen. He scrambles up, off Phil’s lap, sleep suddenly chased from his features. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, god,” Phil says, “god, Dan. No. Not this as in _us_. No. C’mere,” he says, curving an arm, and Dan comes, like a loved, skittish animal. His boy. Phil will share him with the world, but he will share him with conditions. He’s read the fine print, now. Something he should’ve done years ago. “I mean-”

 

So they take an extended, undefined hiatus, because they promised five albums, but they hadn’t promised to work themselves to death. The tour wraps up, and they go home. Dan goes on a Guild Wars binge. Phil’s mum comes to visit. They hang out with their bandmates when they’re in town, grab some beers, laugh easily. They stop by a shelter one day and Dan sees a Great Dane and he looks at Phil and Phil says “Dan-” but it’s no use, it’s really no use at all. Wolf Howell-Lester follows them home, and stays. They call him Walter as a nickname, because that makes sense. Of course it does.

Dan on a stage, dimpling at screaming fans, is exactly the same as Dan at home, dimpling over a mug of tea Phil brings him, Walter huffing happily at his feet. He was born to sing, he was born for that, but he was also born to stay home and sleep and let relaxation settle in to his bones and not have constant bruised-looking swipes of darkness under his eyes. He’s Phil’s boy. Phil peed on his foot the first time they met. Phil gets to call this, at least.

In another universe, another Phil says: “Maybe this book idea is-” and in another, a boy swipes his hand over his face, “I don’t know what to do.”

In this one, Phil settles down next to Dan. On the internet, someone types out a post on how in five years, Dan’s spent most of his breaks with Phil’s family. They’d be right, but it seems to matter less to Dan, these days. It definitely matters less to Phil.

In this one, Phil sips his own tea, says, “Stay, Walter!” when Walter starts to bound joyfully around his legs as a welcome back, and presses his thumb to Dan’s dimple.

Just because he can.

**Author's Note:**

> i like to think that it's a choice, and one they'd choose in any universe.


End file.
